Poetry Tax

Gotcha! There is no poetry tax (yet). This was my first year adding self-employment income to my tax preparation. The IRS estimates that small business owners spend about 13 hours preparing taxes. That includes times spent collecting and compiling receipts, reading up on new tax codes and laws, as well as actual preparation time. I did not log my time, but I am pretty sure I spent about double that amount of time preparing. Now that I have e-filed and my peers are running around on tax day, I can breathe again. And, by personality, if I am breathing I am smiling. So, in lieu of Annual Poetry Month and Tax Day, I thought I might share a few of my favorite tax poems:

The Eiffel Tower

is the Empire State 

Building after taxes.

Anonymous. In "Thoughts on the Business of Life, Forbes, 12/29/97.

The more you earn, the less you keep,

And now I lay me down to sleep.

I pray the Lord my soul to take,

If the tax collector hasn't got it before I wake.

Ogden Nash. From "One from One Leaves Two", 1935.

Tax his food, tax his drink,
Tax him if he tries to think.
Tax his sodas, tax his beers,
If he cries, tax his tears

Tax his bills, tax his gas,
Tax his notes, tax his cash.
Tax him good and let him know
That after taxes, he has no dough

If he hollers, tax him more,
Tax him until he's good and sore.
Tax his coffin, tax his grave,
Tax the sod in which he lays

Put these words upon his tomb,
"Taxes drove me to my doom!"
And when he's gone, we won't relax,
We'll still be after the inheritance tax

 Anonymous, Excerpt from "The Taxation Poem".